Return Of The Ed
by Elmblossom17
Summary: Picking up where the anime left off, in a slightly AU 'verse: Spike survived. How the crew comes back together, and even adds a member. This is Chapters One through Five.


'Return of the Ed' - Chapters One through Five Search:The

A Cowboy Bebop Fanfiction

by Elmblossom17, aka Jessica Robinson

04/17/'03

Warnings and Disclaimers Disclaimer: I do not own Cowboy Bebop. I have no money. I am writing this only for my own enjoyment and not financial gain. Please don't sue. Note: I subscribe to the 'Spike is alive' theory because: A.) It's just too sad! and B.) How could he get together with Faye if he didn't survive? Note the 2nd: I also believe that Spike's Syndicate friend Shin lives, for reasons unknown to me, except maybe that he's awful cute.

Chapter One: Onboard the Bebop

Faye didn't know how much longer she could retain her sanity. Spike was in a coma in the hospital after his climactic battle with Vicious, and Ed and Ein had gone off, apparently to follow Ed's father. That meant Faye was left alone on the Bebop with Jet, and he was driving her crazy.  
Part of the problem was that he always seemed to want to reminisce about Spike, Ed, and Ein. Telling stories of the adventures they'd all had together, as if she hadn't been there to see most of it. The only ones that interested her were Jet's stories of his escapades with Spike before the two cowboys had met up with her, the ones for which she really hadn't been around, and didn't know about. But he didn't seem to have a lot of stories from before their meeting. She didn't know whether he was not talking about that period in their life for a reason, or that they simply hadn't had any interesting adventures during those three years. That much she did know; Spike and Jet had been partners onboard the Bebop for three years before she'd invited herself onto their ship and into their lives.  
The rest of the problem was that, as much as Faye didn't want to admit it, she missed the three missing crewmembers terribly. Ed's wacky hair, her cheery grin, even the third-person speaking and dancing around. Ein's soft, brown dog-eyes, his cheerful bark, his endearing little whine. And Spike... Spike.  
Faye missed the tall, lanky space cowboy more than she would even admit to herself. His absense was like a huge, gaping hole in her heart, eating away at her soul with each passing day that she didn't see his mop of unruly greenish-black hair, or hear his snarky, insulting voice, or smell his cologne-and-cigarettes-combined personal fragrance. Sometimes she would sneak into what had been Spike's bedroom before he left, and sit down on his bed and hug his pillow, or a shirt, or something- anything- to smell that special scent that meant 'Spike Spiegel was here.' She had even slept in his bed, surrounded by his scent, a few times, but she'd made damn sure she never let Jet catch her leaving Spike's room in the morning.  
Sometimes, in her darkest hours, she wondered if maybe it wouldn't be less painful if he was dead; at least that way, there wouldn't be this terrible uncertainty, the not-knowing, the wondering, whether or not he would ever wake up again. Whether she would ever look into his eery-mismatched beautiful brown eyes again. Whether she would ever hear him call her 'the untouchable shrew woman,' and see the glint in his eyes at her response of 'lunkhead' again. If he was dead... then at least she would know.  
But even as she thought that, there was always the hope... that one day soon he would wake up, and glare at her, call her 'Romani,' and light up a cigarette. She hoped- she prayed- she needed- for that to happen.  
In the meantime, though, Jet was driving her crazy.

Chapter Two: Life on Planet Ed

Ed was staring at the back of Mac-person's head. It had been two weeks since she'd left the Bebop, Ein in tow, to find her father. Two boring, dirt-filled, Bebop-less weeks. She didn't say anything to Father-person about how bored she was getting, though; it would only hurt his feelings. He loved his work almost as much as Ed loved her Tomato.  
Ed sighed. She slumped down in her seat, trying not to attract anyone's attention. Ein, sitting beside her, lifted his head off his paws for a moment to whine at her before resuming his prior position.  
Ed sighed and patted Ein despondantly on the head. She didn't even feel like singing anymore. Glancing at the two men sitting in the front seat, feeling utterly ignored, Ed reached into her knapsack and brought out Tomato, wanting only to lose herself in the world of online encryption and decoding.  
To Ed's great shock, consternation and delight- to a certain point- one of her routine checks on her old friends from the Bebop had come up with something. She read the article with burgeoning horror, and by the time she finished it, tears were dripping down her face. "Oh, no," she whispered. Ein looked up and whined at her questioningly, and she looked gravely down at the Data Dog. "Something bad has happened to Spike-lunkhead," she told her canine companion. He yipped, and then looked at Tomato's flip-up screen and read it for himself. He was perfectly capable of doing this, being what he was- an experimental Computer Information Encoding and Decryption Data Dog.  
Ein read the article through, and by the time he got to the end, his little furry body was shaking and he was whining continuously under his breath. He craned his head up at Ed and barked softly a few times.  
Ed's face fell into a deep frown. "We can't just leave Father-person to go find Spike-person," she tried to reason with the dog- and herself, because that was exactly what she wanted to do. "We waited so long and looked so hard to find him..."

Chapter Three: Brother Mac

MacIntyre heard the girl talking softly to herself in the back seat, and peered over his shoulder to look at her. After Appledelhi, MacIntyre figured he could get used to just about anybody's eccenticities. But his boss's daughter was something else completely.  
To MacIntyre's chagrin and surprise, he saw tearstreaks shining on the girl's cheeks. "Hey, Ed," he said, and she looked up at him, visibly shaken and shocked. MacIntyre began to get worried. To a certain extent, he felt as if he were the one responsible for the girl's safety and happiness, as her real father was such an insensitive jerk. He felt very bad for the kid; to be separated from her father for so long, then to find him, only to realize he didn't even remember whether she was a boy or a girl. That must have been pretty traumatic.  
And yet she'd still chosen to leave behind her friends the bounty hunters and follow her father and himself...bringing with her Ein, who was the smartest damn dog MacIntyre had ever seen. Sometimes he was convinced that Ein was not normal. Then again, the Welsh Corgi fit in pretty well with Ed and Appledelhi... Neither one of them was exactly 'normal,' either.  
"What's wrong?" MacIntyre asked the kid, keeping his voice soft so as not to distract Appledelhi, who was supposed to be concentrating on driving the tank.  
"Ed has found out that one of Ed's friends is badly hurt, in a coma. May not wake up, ever-o-ever," Ed sighed dramatically.  
"One of your friends? You mean one of those bounty hunters?" MacIntyre couldn't think of anybody else who'd qualify as Ed's friend.  
"Yes... Spike-person. He got in a bad fight. Bad, bad, very bad fight," she murmured, hugging herself. She seemed to shrink in upon herself, and to MacIntyre she looked even younger than usual.  
"Spike... Was he the calm, bald guy, or the hothead with the green hair?" MacIntyre couldn't remember which one was which. He barely even remembered the two men, as a matter of fact. He'd only met them for a few moments, and they had not really been introduced.  
"Lunkhead Spikey-poo has greeny green hairy hair," Ed nodded, her face brightening for a moment. But then she slumped and looked sad again. "And one eye that sees only his dreams..." she whispered, which MacIntyre did not understand. But he did not doubt that it had some meaning, even if he didn't know what it was. He knew that Ed could be far more perceptive than she acted or anyone could tell. The first night she'd been with Appledelhi and him, she had casually remarked to him that he didn't need to worry about Ein- he would never hurt a fly.  
MacIntyre never figured out how she knew he was afraid of dogs. He certainly never told anyone (except maybe when he was very, very drunk,) and he had long since mastered the physical signs of panic that always came upon him when he saw, heard, or smelled 'dog.' But she'd known, all the same, and she'd tried to comfort him. Even though they barely knew each other, she had tried to help him. That was when he'd had the first inklings that the child was more than just a rather eccentric prodigy; that rather, she was something along the lines of a full-blown genius with severe empathic responses.  
MacIntyre had been studying to be a psychologist before he'd been blindsided by Appledelhi and talked into joining the man's wild crusade. Back then he had been naive and slightly in awe of the seemingly invincible giant of a man. By now he knew better. Appledelhi was just a man, and not a particularly wonderful one, at that. MacIntyre had even thought of leaving him, of just escaping from his boss' madness; but he'd realized that he didn't really know what else he could do.  
And now there was Ed to look after. Just another thing tying him to the crazy mapmaker. MacIntyre scowled, angry at Appledelhi again for what he'd done- to Ed, and to MacIntyre himself. Then he just felt tired and a little sad. "I'm sorry," he said to Ed. 'Sorry about your friend. Sorry that you got such an asshole for a father. But most of all, I'm just sorry that this is where you've ended up. A brilliant thing like you, hiding out in the back of an ancient, broken-down old junker with two ancient, broken-down old men with ancient, broken-down dreams. I'm sorry, Ed'  
"Mac-person needn't feel sorry for Ed," Ed lied bravely, but MacIntyre saw through her weak attempt at making it into a joke. Her big, childish eyes shifted down toward her laptop's screen, and they grew dark with unshed tears.  
"So your friend got into a really bad fight... and then what?" MacIntyre said, trying to distract her.  
"Oh! He was taken-taken to the hospital-ospital-blospital. He is laaaaanguishing there..." she pressed the back of one hand dramatically to her forehead, "in a coma from which he may never wake. Tune in next week to find out what happens next!" She gave MacIntyre a smile that was dazzling because her eyes shone like diamonds- sparkling, wet, salty diamonds.  
MacIntyre rolled his eyes and grinned at her. "So...where is he? What hospital, what planet"  
Ed's eyes tracked across the laptop's backlit screen, and she frowned for a moment before finding the information she wanted. Then she grinned in a way that would've been frightening to anyone who didn't know the computer genius very well. "He is on Marsy-warsy-warsy, the Red-dead-bed Planehhh-ettttt, in the Mars City Hospitallio"  
"Hmmmm..." said MacIntyre, thinking. He knew that logically they could never take time off from meteor-chasing long enough to get to Mars, locate Ed's friend, and visit him, or they would fall hopelessly behind in their work. But perhaps... MacIntyre grinned. "Ed, you know we can't take the time to go visit your friend Spike in the hospital," he began, speaking gently. The kid nodded sadly. "But...maybe we could send him something in the mail? Flowers, a get-well gift, a letter? Something like that." The spiky-purple-haired young man watched eagerly for Ed's reaction to his plan.  
Ed's eyes grew wide and unfocused, and she rocked back on her hips, clutching her bony knees with her thin hands. "Ooooh..." she said softly as a big grin spread over her face. "Oh, yes. Oh yes, Edward thinks that is a very good idea indeedy-deedy-doo, Mac-person." Without another look at him, the wild child hunched over her keyboard, typing furiously with both hands and both feet. MacIntyre looked on in amazement. He never had figured out how she managed that particular trick.

Chapter Four: Introducing... Alia Connelly!

Alia Connelly, a young, pretty brunette nurse who worked at the Mars City Hospital, was on her way from the 67th Floor Nurses' Station to visit the comatose patient in room 67053, identified only as 'Spike' by the strange young man who had brought him to the hospital. That young man, who had refused to identify himself, had said something similar to "You'll be safe here, Spike. They'll help you recover... And then you'll be free." Then he'd left, before anyone could even offer him medical assistance for himself, though it was clear that he was suffering from a gunshot wound. Alia had secretly been disappointed that the rescuer had not admitted himself, as well; he'd been pretty darn cute. Dark, gel-spiked hair; long, black coat with a purple turtleneck sweater underneath; that gorgeous green stone medallion he'd worn; but most of all she had been drawn to his tortured eyes...his deep, dark eyes... Filled with a sad, despairing loneliness that spoke to the nurse in Alia. She's wanted so much to nurse him back to health, to see those eyes sparkle and shine with joy, or mischief, or anything, so long as he smiled. But he'd vanished, and Alia had shook herself out of her daydreaming trance and gotten back to work. Though she could have sworn that he'd looked at her, only at her, for a second, just as he was going.  
The Hospital had put out a search on the name 'Spike' and a picture of the comatose man's face, looking for more information on him, but so far, little had been discovered. It was almost like he didn't even have a past. The only time Alia had ever seen anything like that before was when she'd been dealing with members of a Syndicate. But 'Spike' looked like far too nice a guy to ever have been involved in such nasty goings-on.  
There was a lot of speculation floating around the 67th Floor Nurses' Station about how and where, exactly, he had acquired lacerations so deep and long that they could only have been made by a sword. Along with multiple-multiple gunshot wounds, some at very close range; it was truly a miracle that he'd even lived long enough to let his mysterious rescuer bring him to the hospital. When he arrived, only a makeshift bandage that looked like it had originally been part of a shirt or something had been holding his guts in; he'd lost more blood than was technically possible for a human being to lose without dying. Alia had heard her friend and supervisor Janet muttering something about cats with nine lives as the older nurse had jotted down details on a notepad. It did seem kind of odd...by all rights, that man should have been dead. And yet...he lived. His body was well on its way to recovery. Now, all he had to do was wake up.  
Alia sighed as she walked into room 67053, and then stopped in her tracks when she saw the man kneeling at the patient's bedside. His head was bowed, almost as if in reverence. Alia stared, not because she was so surprised to see that the patient had a visitor- even though it was technically after visiting hours- but because she knew him. It was the same man who had brought him to the hospital in the first place! The man with the tortured eyes!  
With a whirl, the mystery man was on his feet facing Alia. He had- she wanted to gasp, but dared not- a large gun out and pointed at her. They stared at each other in stunned silence for a minute, and then, slowly, he let out his breath and lowered his gun. "I remember you," he said calmly, startling Alia again. "You're the junior nurse"  
"H-how did you..." Alia started to ask him how he knew that about her, but changed tack. "...get in here? It's after visiting hours." She frowned officiously.  
"I didn't want to be disturbed." The strange man turned back to look at the injured man laying on the bed, still holding his gun down at his side. "I also wanted to avoid questions...like that one"  
Alia flushed, and cleared her throat. She approached the patient's bed from the other side, avoiding getting too close to the gun-toting weirdo. The awfully cute gun-toting weirdo.  
"So, how is our friend today?" she said, looking over the various bandages and wrappings. He really was healing awfully fast... Many of his smaller, shallower cuts had already healed completely, and even the deeper ones seemed to be coming along much faster than usual. There weren't even any signs of scarring, except on the wound across his stomach that had almost been the end of him. It was the slowest to heal out of all his wounds, which was not too terribly surprising, all things considered. It had been the deepest, the longest, the most jagged, the most dangerous; it had been the only wound on him that could have been fatal, by itself.  
"He seems restless," the man answered. "He shifts in his dream every so often, but he has still not awakened." His vice sounded...dead...to Alia.  
"Maybe he's getting ready to come out of it," Alia suggested hopefully. She looked at the man with the gun out of the corner of her eye, not wanting to be caught staring at him like a schoolgirl with a crush. 'He really is awfully cute,' she sighed mentally.  
"I don't know. You're the medical professional, you tell me," said the black-haired man.  
Alia flushed again. "Well, he does appear to be significantly improved from the last time I saw him," she said steadily. 'I am a medical professional,' she thought proudly.  
Unseen by anyone, the ghost of a smile lurked in the gunman's eyes. "There you go, then," he said.  
Suddenly Alia couldn't take it anymore. She turned and faced the man with the tortured eyes directly across the bed and its unconscious occupant. "Who are you?" she asked, her voice little more than a whisper. "What is your name? Who are you"  
Slowly, the man turned and faced Alia, an unreadable expression in his eyes. Alia noticed that his gun had disappeared at some point when she wasn't paying attention. She assumed that it was still somewhere on his person, though, and probably easily accessible.  
For the longest time, the man in the black trenchcoat simply stared the young nurse in the eyes, saying nothing. Then, and for what reason Alia did not know, he nodded, and said softly, "My name is Shin"  
"Shin..." Alia repeated, her brown eyes soft and dark against her pale white skin. She smiled, and told him, "I'm Alia"  
"Alia," repeated Shin of the tortured eyes back to the girl. He stood straighter, then, and his voice was cold. "If I told you who I really was, I'd have to kill you"  
For a moment, Alia froze in terror, feeling trapped and helpless. Then- and she never knew what it was exactly- something about his posture, or his expression, or maybe his twitching eyebrow- told her he was joking. She giggled, and the sound rang in the air like church bells on a Sunday morning.  
He turned away then, and she could not see the smile lodged in his eyes. "I must go," he said, looking at her over his shoulder with an unreadable expression. "Maybe I'll see you again sometime... Alia"  
Then he vanished, and afterwards Alia noted that the window was open, and she could not remember for the life of her whether it had been open the whole time- or not.

Chapter Five: Email from Planet Ed

Faye was watching reruns of some ancient soap opera on the TV when she heard that odd sound from her lap top that says 'You've Got Mail' and is the bane- or the center- of many people's existances. With a bored sigh, she went over to the computer where it balanced precariously on the edge of the low coffee table that now sat before the broken-down couch in the living area. Jet had brought it back with him last time he'd gone shopping, supposedly for food. He'd said to her when she asked him about it, "I just felt like getting something new." She had known better than to protest. There would have been no point to it, anyway. He'd already bought it, brought it home (since when had the Bebop become 'home'? and yet it was,) and set it up.  
Faye clicked on the dancing Ed-smiley icon that was part of Ed's legacy on all the computers of the Bebop, and the email unfolded itself and she found herself staring at a real picture of Ed's face. Then, from the speakers of the tiny laptop, Ed's voice issued: Ed has just found out about Spike-person's injuries. Ed thought Jet-person and Faye-faye would be glad to know that Ed is sending to Spike-person a get-well-soon present! Ed misses the Bebop, and Ein does too! The familiar sound of a bark was heard. Bye-bye, Faye-faye and Jet-person. Ed loooo-ooves you! And then the email ate itself.  
Faye was startled to find that her cheeks were wet. Hearing Ed's amazingly bizarre voice had brought back memories that, while painful, still brought a smile to her lips. She chuckled softly, and then laughed, missing the crazy kid and the damn dog and the man with the mismatched eyes more than she could bear at that moment. Fresh tears sprung to her eyes, and she wiped them away angrily. 'You've no right to make me cry,' she thought, without knowing who, exactly, she was addressing.  
Faye heard a noise behind her, and she turned quickly to see the familiar sight of Jet leaning on the doorframe in his 'Kiss the Cook' apron, his powerfully sinewy arms crossed over his broad, muscular chest. He was an odd, but welcome, sight.  
"Dinner's ready," was all he said. He turned and walked back into the kitchen. Faye got up slowly, trying to regain her composure before he noticed that something was up with her.  
Which he would; he had some weird kind of 'Dad-radar' that clued him in to whenever she was feeling down, or angry, or unhappy in some way or other. Faye had pretty much come to see the older man as a father; it wasn't particularly that she wanted a father, but he just... acted like one, a lot of the time. It hadn't been a hard leap of logic to make.  
Faye sighed and went into the kitchen, eyes and cheeks dry, a small smile pasted on her lips. Jet stared at her for a minute, giving her a look that said quite plainly, 'I know you're hiding something, but I'm going to let you get away with it... just this once.' Then he set down a plate in front of her that held a serving of Jet's special; bell-peppers with beef...vegetaran style.  
Faye sighed and tucked in fast so her tastebuds wouldn't have time to register the foulness passing by them. She didn't want to taste the stuff, just to eat it. "What do you think? Pretty good, huh?" Jet said.  
Faye looked at the older bounty hunter dryly. "Do you want to hear what I think, or do you want to hear what I'd say"  
"Um...say"  
"Yeah, it's great!"

Email: 


End file.
